Daddy stuff and being a healthy inspiration for my kids

I’m not normally one for setting resolutions but this year there are a few things I’m aiming for. A post by Tom over at Diary of the Dad has inspired me to write them down.

Be calm and controlled when speaking to the children (shout less)
My wife recently wrote about our efforts to change our parenting for the better. We have been following the steps in the book 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child. Our eldest can be a massively challenging, defiant and sometimes violent little person but the way we, and especially me, had been reacting was not at all cool – way too many outbursts of shouting. Basically doing a bunch of stuff I was shouting at them for doing and not setting a particularly good example.

So far we’re happy with what the steps in this book are doing for us so resolution number one is to just keep it up.

Exercise more often than not
Simple – do some kind of exercise more days of the week than I don’t. It doesn’t have to be an epic workout every time, just something to try and undo all the desk time.

More non-kidlet time
I love them dearly but the relentless cycle in the latter half of the year of work – shout at kids – sleep – repeat was pretty grinding. Ditching the shouting is helping but both me and my wife are a bit shit about making time away from the kids for us as a couple and as individuals.

F is now nearly one so becoming less dependent on Reneé. Now we need to cash in some of those offers of childcare and look after ourselves a bit more. We’ll be better parents for it.

That may seem like a weird thing to say as at the start of or the year I was already a dad to two, married for five and in a relationship for ten.

Then in February we had Freddy who is awesome, even though he seems to hate sleep (sorry buddy, you are getting evicted into your own room very soon).

So now I’m a Dad to three children. Three! That’s more than I have hands! And I’m supposed to teach them about a world I’m not sure I understand myself.

The doubting demon in the back of my mind says “How can you do this, you’re not even a proper grown up”. Now, as much as that demon can be quite convincing, I’m starting to think he’s wrong. I mean, none of them have ever been hurt too seriously in my care, they’re fed pretty well and happy most of the time – so maybe I am a proper grown up?

Then there’s work, which went nuts half way through the year when three out of our team of six left in the same month. Suddenly I’m stepping up to do work that was previously done be people way above my pay grade. Don’t get me wrong, career wise this is great and I’m so much happier with my job now than the one I was doing at the start of the year. The weird thing is now new people have joined the team suddenly I’m the one they come to with questions and for advice. They’re expecting me to make decisions for crying out loud!

Along comes the doubting demon again “Andy, what if they find out you’re faking it, don’t really know what you are doing and aren’t even a proper grown up?” But then I start talking and people nod like it makes sense, they go do what I said and it works.

It makes me wonder. I might not feel like a grown up, or even behave like one, but I seem to be OK at some of the ‘grown up stuff’. Maybe, just maybe, the doubting demon is wrong and would be best to shut the fuck up?

So there you go. 2014, the year Andy grew up (aged 34). But not totally, I still like Thundercats and stuff like that, I’m just a bit more grown up than in 2013.

Does any of this sound familiar? Are you a non-grown up doing grown up stuff fearing the day you get exposed as a fraud?

I’m not sure if it’s the time of year (winter not Christmas) but my musical tastes are currently flitting between fairly lairy techno and moments if melancholy. Maybe it’s the brutal lack of sleep brought on by piles of ill children. Who knows, either way – here’s what’s been on my stereo this week.

This Sunday was the first day I watched all three children on my own. Although mildly terrified on the run up it was actually completely fine. Here’s what I discovered:

Get out early, and stay out
I knew this anyway – hanging around in the house = bored monkeys, and bored monkeys = riding brother like a donkey, poking sister in the face etc etc etc.

So we were on the 9:30 train to soft play, shops, GBK, play park – anything but hang around in the house. The added bonus was that just after lunch they all did this, at the same time!

Do whatever you need to to keep the happiness levels up
Those photos say it all. That’s Five and Nearly-3 in the double buggy and Really-Quite-Chunky-For-10-Months in the sling. The back ache was preferable to herding the older ones under their own steam.

I could hear Dear Wifey saying “What’s the point of all that exercise if you can’t carry all three children when they have a chronic case of ‘tired leggies'”. And she would have had a point.

Share the load
I’m not sure if this is cheating, or invalidates everything I’m saying, but Five had a birthday party in the afternoon. At which point looking after two children felt like a holiday.

And a bonus fourth point: Dear Wifey does an amazing job
I also knew this anyway. While I’m patting myself on the back she does this every single day. I now have a fuller appreciation of why she falls asleep on the sofa at 8:30.

This sort of follows on from my post last week about finding the time for exercise, or anything else that is important to you.

Writing that got me thinking about how I try to manage different priorities in a way that means everyone’s (family, not the whole world) needs are met, including mine.

This isn’t much of a structured post, it’s more of a brain dump. This seemed to be as sensible a place as any to record it.

Inescapable priorities (if I didn’t take care of these I would cease to function, or be on the way to being an arsehole):

Family – give focused love to each one

Family – play

Good food – for me, make sure it is provided for them

Roof over head

Work (which supports 1,2,3&4)

Sleep (or whatever approximation of sleep you can get)*

* That is my ideal order. The day-to-day reality is that it goes 5, 4, 3, 1, 2, 6. Note that sleep comes last both times. Our son is cute but he is a menace during the night.

Then, other things I like to do, but aren’t life or death:

Blogging**

Exercise

Hobbies

TV

Basically, everything else

** I know this is a serious earner for some but probably not for most

This helps keep me honest. I know I need to get everything in list one sorted first (which can take upwards of 90% of my day). However, and going back to the time post, once that’s done the order of list two is completely up to me. Usually I put exercise above blogging in the evenings, sometimes I put a chocolate brownie above everything.

How about you? Does anyone else think like this? I sometimes wonder if I’m a bit weird……